OK, I do realize that everyone is already sick of the term "cromnibus." I'm no exception -- I was sick of it the first time I heard it, in fact. But seeing as how we've only got one more week of talking about it (before it becomes an answer in political barroom trivia games of the future), I felt it was time to stretch the inane metaphor once again. Because today the subject on Capitol Hill is riders. That's right, the riders on the cromnibus.

I paused there, in my typing, to allow time for everyone to cringe. Just to let you know.

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There are plenty of metaphors to choose from, as we all breathlessly watch the Republican Party make their latest attempt at semi-rational governing. Since the vehicle chosen for this Washington drama has been dubbed the "cromnibus," these metaphors all lean on the transportation theme. Will the wheels on the cromnibus go 'round and 'round? Are Tea Partiers waiting at the cromnibus stop, or will they just stop the cromnibus? Will the cromnibus even leave its House depot? Who will be forced to sit at the back of the cromnibus? Republicans are either on the cromnibus, or off the cromnibus (warning: due to its origins in the counterculture, Republicans may not get the reference in this last one).

The problem , as usual, comes from the Tea Party faction in the Republican Party. Since Nancy Pelosi has now signaled that Democrats are going to essentially sit this one out, John Boehner will be forced to pass his new budget scheme through the House with only Republican votes. If enough of them (fewer than 20, assuming no Democrat votes for it) decide the cromnibus isn't sufficiently combative, then the cromnibus will grind to a halt before its even leaves the station.

If you are only now emerging from your tryptophan-induced holiday haze and am wondering what the heck I'm even talking about, the "cromnibus" is a new thing in Washington, a mashup of "continuing resolution" (or "CR") and an "omnibus" budget bill. I debated the finer points of usage for the neologism last week, so check that out if you're still puzzled (but be warned, it could put you right back to sleep). In layman's terms, the cromnibus is a method Speaker John Boehner is proposing (to his fellow Republicans) which would fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year (through next September, in other words); except for the Department of Homeland Security, which would only be funded for roughly three months (or possibly even less time -- such details haven't been decided yet). The full funding part is the "omnibus" and the three-month short leash for Homeland Security is the "continuing resolution" part.

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Yes, folks, it has been a whole year, and it is time once again to launch our annual holiday pledge drive!

As usual, we are employing a tactic known as "soften them up with kittens," in order to convince our readers to open their purses and wallets wide, in our once-yearly effort to pay the bills here at ChrisWeigant.com. Because even kittens love presents...

How can you resist those baby blues?

Last year, I regret to announce, we fell just a wee bit short of our fundraising goal, making it the first year in a long stretch where the site wasn't fully self-supporting. We did get awfully close, though, so we were able to tighten our belt a bit and get the bills paid on time. Our fundraising, I should mention, only covers the costs of doing business (computer and ISP fees and office expenses), and not fancy trips to national conventions and Netroots Nation (neither of which actually happened this past year, for unrelated reasons). We're just trying to cover the basics, in other words, with these pledge drives.

This year, hopefully, we can return once again to meeting our goal, so that we can continue bringing your reality-based political blather fully free of advertising. Those readers who have been around for a while might remember our "banner ad" period, and nobody really wants to go back to that, right? So we heartily encourage everyone to donate what they can so we can continue to avoid looking at ads here.

We'd all rather look at kittens instead, right? Even when they're broadcasting a monumental guilt trip...

Not getting your donation makes me sad.

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The world (of Obama polling) is flat

I try, as a general rule, to avoid quoting Tom Friedman for any reason whatsoever, but this month's job approval polling for President Obama can really only be described with one word: flat. And once you've got that, it's pretty hard to avoid falling into the depths of a Friedman meme, really.

Added together, the differences from October to November for Obama's average monthly job approval and job disapproval ratings total a whopping 0.1 percent. That's pretty flat. Remarkably, this was during a month with several enormous political stories, from the midterm election results to immigration reform to Ferguson, Missouri. Before we get to all of that, let's take a look at the flatness of the chart for November.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

November, 2014

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Yes, apparently that's a new word now: "cromnibus." Now, some, editorially-speaking, have been insisting on "CRomnibus" or "Cromnibus," but for the time being here, we've decided that it doesn't qualify for proper-name status in any way.

[I should interrupt this perhaps-less-than-fascinating pedantry for a quick message for those of you who were expecting something a little more Thanksgiving-ey today. While I have in years past occasionally devoted the Wednesday-Before-Turkey-Day to such holiday-appropriate columns, it's never been a hard and fast rule here. But I don't want to disappoint, so for traditionalists, here is the funniest Thanksgiving column of all time, from Art Buchwald. If that isn't enough, for dessert you could read the lyrics to "Alice's Restaurant," the best Thanksgiving song ever written, by the incomparable Arlo Guthrie. That's enough Thanksgiving for all, so let's get back to splitting editorial hairs, shall we?]

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It was fashionable, immediately after the election of Barack Obama, for some (mostly white) commentators to proclaim that America had entered a "post-racial" era. What they meant by this, loosely translated, was: "A black man has been elected president, so all our racial problems must be over now, right?"

This was patent nonsense, of course, but that didn't stop many (some of whom really should have known better) to make this absurd claim. But breaking one glass ceiling, or checking off one very important "first African-American" accomplishment was never the panacea it was made out to be. Racial divisions still remain, and racial misunderstanding still abounds.

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All of the Benghazi conspiracy theories have now been completely debunked. Again. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence just publicly released its report, which systematically knocks down pretty much every paranoid theory over the tragedy which happened in Benghazi, Libya and what happened immediately afterwards. For those of you who are counting, this is the seventh such report that has come to exactly the same conclusions. The House committee was led by a Republican, but the report itself was a bipartisan effort.

That we have had seven thorough investigations of this tragedy is apparently not enough for some folks, since an eighth investigation was recently launched by House Republicans. They refuse to accept the conclusions of these prior investigations -- all seven of them -- that there simply was no nefarious plot from the White House to "spin" the tragedy for political gain. In fact, the mere existence of seven investigations (with the eighth already underway) should indicate to the objective observer that only one party is "playing politics" with the Benghazi tragedy -- and it is not President Obama's party who is doing so.

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When Congress wouldn't pass a bill, the president had to act on immigration and deportation policy, to keep families intact -- a measure that affected 40 percent of the undocumented immigrants in the United States. The president in question was George H. W. Bush, and the year was 1990. Congress, at the time, was run by the opposition party. What did they do in response? They passed a bill, which Bush later signed.

Last night, President Obama announced he's acting on immigration and deportation policy, to keep families intact, which will affect the same 40 percent of undocumented immigrants here. Congress is soon to be run completely by Obama's opposition party. What will they do in response?

There are a lot of possible answers to that question, but very far down on the list would be "pass a bill which Obama can sign." That was never going to happen -- it wouldn't have happened if Obama hadn't acted, it wouldn't have happened before the end of the year, it wouldn't have happened next year with a new Congress. And now it is definitely not going to happen. Nothing has changed on that front.

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President Obama just gave one of the shortest and most succinct speeches of his political career, laying out his new immigration and deportation policy. The speech seemed heartfelt and personal. There were few digressions into side issues or personal stories. It clocked in at somewhere near 15 minutes, which is notably short for not just any Obama speech but for any modern politician's speech.

Normally, during an Obama speech, I take notes to remind me of the overall themes as well as individual turns of phrase worth quoting. Tonight, this was almost not possible due to the quick cadence and brevity. Obama intelligently didn't get down into the weeds of his new policy, although I'm sure the details have been released to the press by now. There'll be plenty of time later to dissect those details, but tonight I'm going to focus just on the speech itself, and my personal reactions.

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The Republican leadership in Congress is reportedly considering a brilliant idea. Now, normally when I start a column off with a line like that, my intent is to be as snarky and caustic as possible (especially when I use the word "brilliant"). Not this time, though -- this time I am offering nothing but praise for what could indeed be a great way for Republicans to solve their internal struggle about how to respond to President Obama's upcoming new policy on immigration. I say this because while the idea of rescission would certainly allow the Tea Partiers to stage a big political drama, it would also allow the adults in the Republican Party to move the possibility of shutting down the government completely off the table for almost a year into the future. At this point, that seems like a win-win proposition for all, and about the best of all the possible scenarios.

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